Page 39 of Undone

It takes approximately fifteen minutes from campus to get to Lily’s town house on my bike. Fifteen minutes of gripping my handlebars too tightly and still trying not to skid on any black ice. Considering it only took me one visit to carefully memorize where she lived, I find it easily.

Still, the sight of another car, a red Xterra with a dent on the front right like they sideswiped something, makes my stomach roll, heat racing up my neck. I’m off like a shot, not bothering to take my helmet off as I knock loudly on the door, incessantly. Annoying enough to interrupt whatever is going on in there. My imagination has always been dangerous, but with my adrenaline feeding it like a drug, it’s worse.

The door creaks open, Lily standing in the doorway in tights and an oversize gray sweater that almost covers her little silk skirt entirely. She’s wearing a black wool beret that I remember her wearing in the coldest winter we had in Walden Bay. I had told her I was in love with it, with her in it, and she wore it every day for a week, despite getting in trouble for it at school every day.

Would it be too obvious to beg her to take it off now?

There’s a brief pause, like she’s seeing a ghost, before she crosses her arms.

“What are you doing here?”

Wordlessly, I lift the crumpled papers from where I had shoved them in my jacket pocket.

“Oh.” Her arms sink down at her sides. “You’re here about the ad?”

“Funny.” I push into her space, flicking up my visor to glare down at her. “Let me in.”

She shakes her head. “No, thank you. We’d be terrible roommates. Goodbye.”

We were practically roommates for years, but sure.

Lily’s hands start to shove the door closed, but I push it and stomp my way inside. Pulling my helmet off my head, I look back at her in the foyer. She’s angry, a flush to her cheeks. I can almost feel the steam rising off her ears.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I snap, dropping my helmet on the doormat next to the line of her shoes. There’s a coatrack in the corner by the window, her blue wool peacoat and Burberry trench its only inhabitants.

“I don’t need your help,” she counters sassily. “I need a roommate, and for your information, I got a lot of calls already.”

I’ll bet she did. By fucking perverts.

“Um . . . should I leave?”

We both spin toward the newcomer in the doorway. He’s frat, wearing three Greek letters across his chest, his hair a mess in a backward cap.

“Yes.”

“No.”

Our answers are simultaneous and overly loud, before Lily jerks her head back up to me, sticking out her tongue before trying to turn back to him with a pleasant little grin. My hand grips nearly her entire head as I settle my palm atop her beret, pushing it down over her forehead.

“Need me to show you the door?” I grit out.

The guy’s eyes grow large, nodding as he gives me a wide berth to slip out of the front door.

“Great!” Lily shouts the second the door snicks closed. “Just great!” She yanks the hat out of her eyes, then fully off her head, making her usually slick, smooth hair stick up like she touched a live wire.

She steps backward. I follow, stepping closer.

“I have one more week to find a roommate and you messed it all up!”

She steps back again. I step closer again.

“You don’t—”

Her back hits the wall of the stairs. My hand reaches up to grip one of the banisters above her.

“Fifteen.”

“What?” she says, blue eyes blinking up at me, wide.